Tragically, in 2019, my fianc\u00e9e took her own life. What began as one of the most heartbreaking, devastating experiences of my life, turned into an unending nightmare. The police arrested me after I called 911 because they believed we had been arguing. But then, with scant investigation, prosecutors immediately charged me with murder and imprisoned me for 72 days without bail.<\/p>\n
A jury eventually found me not guilty<\/a>, but only after my attorney learned a prosecutor purposefully withheld evidence exonerating me. That may be unimaginable in America — but it happened to me. And when it did, I learned the hard truth: prosecutors (unlike almost any other lawyer or professional) enjoy absolute immunity, meaning both the wrongly accused and victims of crime have no recourse, and prosecutors cannot be sued for the damage they cause.<\/p>\n I learned firsthand that when attorneys fail to fulfill their oaths of office, just like a doctor or police officer, the consequences can be dire \u2013 even life-ending. This becomes even more egregious when that failure is purposeful, yet not all attorneys are held equal under the law.<\/p>\n I was wrongly incarcerated and prosecuted, even though the forensic pathologist refused to rule my fiance’s death a homicide. Only weeks after my arrest — while I remained behind bars \u2014 Denver\u2019s own chief deputy crime lab director and the lead Denver homicide detective advised the prosecutor of their opinions that the death was not a homicide, but a suicide. Even though the prosecutor knew this critical information that would have exonerated me, the prosecutor purposefully withheld this information from myself and my defense team for nearly 8 months. I was eventually acquitted only after these opinions were forcibly revealed in response to a court order.<\/p>\n Who was that prosecutor? Chief Deputy Dan Cohen from the Denver District Attorney\u2019s office. The judge, clearly outraged, issued a sanction allowing my lawyer to cross-examine the witnesses about their favorable opinions — but otherwise faced no consequences. His law license remained intact, and his boss excused the behavior.<\/p>\n Imagine my outrage and disappointment when I read a recent Denver Post article covering judges dismissing other cases in which Chief Deputy Daniel Cohen failed\u00a0to disclose critical and favorable evidence<\/a> to the accused.\u00a0In the most recent case, this was again not a clerical oversight or an isolated misstep.\u00a0In fact, the judge in the case ruled, \u201cAt this point in time, I can’t find that it\u2019s anything other than willful given the number of times this issue has been addressed with this particular counsel.\u201d The Post article pointed out that there have been at least seven other discovery violations<\/a> committed by the\u00a0Denver District Attorney\u2019s Office\u00a0since February of 2025.<\/p>\n These are real Coloradan’s lives on the line. Yet the wrongly accused, like myself, have no recourse to hold prosecutors accountable.<\/p>\n This story shows that even when judges grow frustrated with prosecutors\u2019 misconduct, their tools are limited. They can allow broader cross-examination or dismiss a case — but they cannot punish the prosecutor. The repeated violations we see prove that these sanctions, while appropriate, do little to deter misconduct. And with Mr. Cohen still abusing his power five years after egregiously breaking the rules in my case, it\u2019s clear the Denver District Attorney\u2019s office isn\u2019t imposing serious discipline either.<\/p>\n Prosecutors are the most powerful lawyers in America. They decide who to criminally charge, when and what crimes to allege, whether to offer leniency, what evidence to turn over and what sentence to pursue. As I now personally understand, they have an immense amount of power to impact the lives and families of both the guilty and the innocent.<\/p>\n Given this power, you\u2019d expect prosecutors to be held to higher standards of accountability. Instead, the opposite is true. Misconduct is brushed off as business as usual, denied and excused at every turn, and much of it never comes to light.\u00a0 Even when caught red-handed, prosecutors keep their jobs and their law licenses, shielded from any liability for damage they cause. In any other profession, mine included as an architect, such deliberate abuses would end a career.<\/p>\n